Maybe, but it could just as well be that someone on the Arab/Islamist side is using Syria's civil war as good cover in which to escalate attacks on everyone's favourite middle-east enemy - the Israelis. Surprise surprise, Israel responds as it usually does: hard.

Israel have actually been surprisingly moderate so far. They're targeting military leaders and keeping casualties to a minimum, while Hamas are firing literally hundreds of rockets at civilians.

Of course it could well tip over into real nastiness from Israel like it did four years ago, but so far it's seems a bit harsh to be condemning of Israel on this one as far as I can tell.

The main problem Israel has is that it's not just Hamas that are now firing rockets into it. In fact, one could argue that Hamas have been observing a truce better than it has been in recent years. Assassinating it's leaders won't help keep that and will only fire up the other militant groups.

Not that there is a simple resolution to all this. At times I feel that the Israelis and Palestinians have crossed the point of no return.

Israel have GOT to grow up and start being the better man in this situation or it’ll never change. Whatever we think – whatever they think – they need to find a way to deal with the people who are in charge of the place. If anything, they should be HELPING Hamas get proper control over the territory so at least when the rockets do fly they can be damn sure they’re blaming the right people (and have the moral high ground). Repeatedly assassinating Hamas’ leaders and senior figures is only causing chaos in their ranks and fuelling hatred.

But as LeoliansBro says... Israel don’t want a deal anyway. This is muscle flexing to warn their other neighbours that they’re still a force to be feared. And election bullshit, obviously. It’s painfully transparent.

LeoliansBro wrote:
True restraint would have been to continue to highlight the transgressions of Hamas, and let the world consensus force them to the table to broker a deal. It's happened in the past, and come close to getting somewhere as well.

Israel's policy has been "hit us and we'll hit back a hundred times harder" for the best part of sixty years now. Right or wrong (I think it's understandable if not always agreeable) it's very predictable.

So whenever Hamas or Hezbollah instigate attacks, it can be viewed as provocation.

I do agree that Israel have no interest in a deal or peace (at a leadership level at least) but I think it's important to understand the psyche of them as a nation. They are permanently in ultra defensive mode. It's sort of missing the point to talk bout them having a "duty of care" as that's just an alien concept to them. Any support or backing they have does not alter their perception that nobody else really gives a fuck about them.

SClaw wrote:
Israel have GOT to grow up and start being the better man in this situation or it’ll never change. Whatever we think – whatever they think – they need to find a way to deal with the people who are in charge of the place. If anything, they should be HELPING Hamas get proper control over the territory so at least when the rockets do fly they can be damn sure they’re blaming the right people (and have the moral high ground). Repeatedly assassinating Hamas’ leaders and senior figures is only causing chaos in their ranks and fuelling hatred.

Yeah, I do agree with this.

Israel is the equivalent of an extremely badly treated dog that now has defensive viscousness ingrained into its very nature. I realise the logical conclusion of that train of thought is that they should be "put down" and I'm of course not condoning anything like that, but it's a problem I can't see a solution to, at least nothing in the immediate future.

The problem is that their safety and their future as a nation is absolutely the only thing they give a fuck about. Literally. It will take decades, if not centuries for them to feel comfortable enough to take a more worldly view.

Ironically no one gives a fuck about them because about of that perception.

But in truth they do. Any other state and we’d be up in arms about it… but Israel is Little America in the Middle East so they can do no wrong by the vast majority of the world. And people wonder why there is an ever increasing rift between the West and the Muslim world.

There are definitely two sides to this issue, but one of those sides as nukes and international backing so I find it very hard to get behind their actions.

As long as they're a friendly country in the middle of Arab land, they'll continue to have America's backing I think. They've done more than enough war crimes in the last decade or so to test their standing. They probably know that, but again, they see the support as for political reasons (which it probably is), rather than anyone actually giving a fuck about their best interests.

SClaw wrote:
There are definitely two sides to this issue, but one of those sides as nukes and international backing so I find it very hard to get behind their actions.

I think the whole situation is beyond moral judgements. I don't agree with anything either side do from a moral point of view, but I can see why they do it. I even get why Al-Queda and the like do what they do.

SClaw wrote:
however one side really does have a such a decisive advantage so it’s like watching a cat toy with a mouse.

Well, imagine a soldier with a machine gun surrounded by people with rocks. All day every day they throw rocks at him, which actually hurt, but for the most part he ignores it. Then once in a while he has enough so he shoots them all, for which he is roundly condemned, because he has a machine gun, and all they have is rocks.

That's barely even an analogy. That's pretty much exactly the situation.

Lashing out and killing the rock-throwers isn't exactly a great long-term plan though. They will be replaced with more, angrier rock-throwers, unless you can dismantle the whole rock-throwing enterprise. Which is just not feasible.

And then you have the settlers (many of them also rock-throwers) who are camping out illegally, a government that can't (or won't) do anything about them because they want a stable coalition with settler supporters, a marginally more peacible rock-thrower party whose massive corruption makes them unpopular, splinter rock-throwing groups, a giant wall separating everyone, and an overseas gun-holding superpower pledged to support the local gun-holders over the rock-throwers even when the gun-holders do things that are massively unproductive and unhelpful, and even though their alliance hasn't really been all that beneficial for the superpower since the Cold War.

The analogy is kind of breaking down here, but that's the point. It's a clusterfuck.